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Not long ago I entered a mini tirade on the subject of blogs with writing companions in response to this blog:

The article in part lionizes Lady Gaga and her Blog, and by extension her behavior. We see a screen shot to demonstrate her preeminent social media networking powers. A large caption strikes at us “Jerry Seinfeld says he hates Lady Gaga!” and then proceeds to vomit on about turning negative spin into social media capitol.

I like Jerry Seinfeld. When I look at him I see a guy who does what he loves but in an unassuming way. He doesn’t jump all over media outlets in a sequined bra to get a few likes. But he does say some very pertinent things, like when he was interviewed by Andrew Denton on Enough Rope about speaking with school kids about his three rules of life:

“I just sat down with a pad and paper and I thought – well what are my three rules of life? And I came up with bust your ass, pay attention and fall in love. And so I talked to the kids about these are the three things you need to know to succeed in life.

Bust your ass is a just basically whatever you do just kill yourself. Work as hard as you can… only good can come of it.

Pay attention is just, people just don’t notice enough about what’s going on around them and you can absorb and learn from everything around you all the time, you know, ask people questions all the time.

And fall in love… isn’t really a romantic love … like if I get a really good cup of coffee I like to just go, you know what, just hang on a second, ‘This is a fantastic cup of coffee!!’ And I’ll ask everyone, ‘Isn’t this great coffee?’ … you will enjoy life more if you do that.”

And on Lady Gaga:

“I’m not one of these all-publicity-is-good people. People talk about you need exposure — you could die of exposure. She is talented. I don’t know why she’s doing this stuff.”

I don’t know why either, nor do I want to emulate her as is suggested By Michael.

The problem is that it is all too easy to dismiss all blogging on the surmise of it all being just media whoring. It’s not, and I know that. There are interesting and erudite musings on any number of subjects. The difficulty is discerning between that which has value and that which does not. Because of the periodical nature of blogs some posts are gold, some merde.

It has been easy for me to dismiss blogging in entirety due to volume. By distinction there will always be more dross than gold and due to the overwhelming volume of words that get sprayed around the internet much of that volume is simply noise. But through the cacophony lies strains of pure thought, notes of knowledge, golden insights on the world. And so often they are simple, things we deeply know, but when they are spoken by someone living the truth of those words gain resonance and substance. We know them as words truly spoken. Work hard, pay attention, fall in love. So simple, it might be easy to miss.

I sat down to write my first Blog post, because that is what I need to do next, that is part of my work. I want my secret dream that I am able to help folk with my words to come true. I have to get those words out there. Some will be dross, some will be good. There will be grammar errors and typos, I will look back and wonder why I wrote certain things, and I will learn and work and grow.